BEATRICE – Public schools in Nebraska have another state mandate to deal with. The Nebraska Legislature Thursday gave final approval to a bill that will require school boards to adopt policy on access by a parent or guardian to certain library information.

Senator Dave Murman’s LB 390 would require parents or guardians to have access to specific school library information, through an online catalog of books and a notification system to inform parents when their student checks out a book. That would include the title, author and due date.

"A school library has to have a list of books that they have on hand and if a parent wants to see that list they will have the availability to do so. It has to be a parent....not anyone in the community. The parent would have to opt in to receive the e-mail on what their child checks out....so, the parent will not be notified what is checked out, unless they opt in to be able to do that. Truly, do we want government raising our kids, or should parents be in the drivers seat to raise our kids?"

Some lawmakers said it’s an example of government sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong. Senator Megan Hunt says parents and guardians can already access such information from school officials.

"At some point, colleagues, we have to ask ourselves...does everything have to be a law? This bill is government raising our kids. This bill is the hand of government coming into schools, coming into school libraries and giving them what I call, another chore to do. Going to schools as members of the legislature who are not educational experts....who are not experts in education theory, or anything like that...and going to schools and teachers and saying, here's another chore that's been handed down to you, by edict of the legislature. This is government raising our kids, instead of parents raising our kids."

The bill was advanced to the legislature by the Education Committee, chaired by Murman.
Hunt said schools should not be a place where students fear being reported, for what they read. She said the legislature has gone from trying to protect kids from online information, to now trying to keep them from books.

"Whether it's attacks on public schools...cuts to funding...or controlling and surveilling what we allow kids to read....these are all just grains of sand until the bucket finally tips over and we are in a post-literate society. It's sad. You're all worried about what kids are looking at on TikTok, Snapchat or whatever. You know what the solution to that is, colleagues? Get these kids' noses in a book."

Senator Margo Jaurez, who served on a school board in Omaha….said districts already allow parents to make decisions on what their children read or have access to.

A motion to strike the enacting clause in the bill failed, on an 8-31 vote. LB 390 then passed on a 34-14 vote.